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 My
mind and my memories start to become clearer when I think of life at
Shotley Park. Shotley Park, was a large place a big English Stately Home,
that covered an enormous amount of land of about 40 acres. Within it was a
wood with a stream running through the middle, there was a farm within the
grounds part of which was hired out to a local farmer. At the front of the
house was an oval drive-way about 100 yards long and 50 yards wide with a
green lawn in the middle, a few oak trees and conifers grew majestically
on the lawn, the trees alone must have been over two hundred years old. At
the centre of the house facing the lawn and front drive-way was the front
entrance where cars and probably in the old day's, horse drawn carriages
could unload their occupants. This entrance was out of bounds for us, I
only went through this entrance once in all of the seven years that I was
at
Shotley Park, which was when I first arrived there.
On the front right side of the building, next to the dining room was a
large garden and rockery, to the left a small greenhouse. At the
back on the left side of the house in the corner there was a glass door
entrance and exit from what we called the ballroom onto a rockery with
small paths and a garden where you could sit when the weather permitted,
(this area was also used for garden fetes in the summer months). The rest
of the area at the back of the house was used as a lawn except for a built
up piece of flat smooth ground of about 40 square yards that may have been
used as a bowling green, or croquet by the original owners at the back bit
of the back lawn. At the end of this back lawn was a small iron fence that
divided us from the enormous sloped farmers field on a hill, that
stretched all the way down to the bushes just before the main bottom road.
On the front left side of the house was a small grass pathway area that
stretched as far as the bushes and trees that were part of the drive-way
that sloped down towards the grounds bottom entrance at the bottom public
road about 300 yards away. There was a back entrance to the house, a
large sunken yard with a stone stairway that led out onto the back main
upper yard on the left side of the building, which used to be the traders
and servant's entrance in the old days and was now to be my entrance for
the next seven years. At the left side of the top yard were old horses'
stables, on the right side of the yard, across the small drive-way that
passed through this part, was a large shed that was used to park cars, at
the back of this shed was a garden area and an orchid that grew fruit and
vegetables. The drive-way at the back rose slightly up a small hill and
then levelled out across the farmers land for about 400 to 500 yards until
the drive-way reached the back entrance of Shotley Park, here it joined
the top public road. Both public roads the one at the bottom entrance and
the one at the top entrance eventually entered the village of Shotley
Bridge from different sides.
There was another entrance a thin pathway along the side of the woods or
the dell as we called it, this pathway led onto a small wooden bridge that
crossed the stream then through a grassy open space until we came to a
small iron gate that also brought us onto the top public road into Shotley
Bridge. This then was to be my play area for the next seven years
the woods with its stream passing through the middle and the dell with all
the wild animals and birds that lived there. The drive-way on
the hill at the back of the home was where we used to ride down onto the
upper back yard on bicycles with no tyres or brakes and four wheeled
wooden bogeys that we made ourselves from old pram wheels.
There was another area at the back which was later given to us, this area
was divided into individual plots so that we could grow what we liked
vegetables' flowers etc. We used the enormous sloped farmers
field at the back for athletics in the summer and sledged there in the
winter snow, in the woods we played catch, cowboys and Indians, cops and
robbers etc. In the Spring watching the flowers and the leaves
come out on the trees and bushes was a wonderful sight. The animal and
bird life, wild rabbits' thrushes and the crows came back into the woods
and the dell. In the summer when it was hot, the woods were cool and
pleasant for us to play in. But in the autumn, when the leaves of the
trees changed into all variations of a brown golden colour, it was the
squirrels that came out in large numbers to eat the hazelnuts from the
hazelnut trees and the oak trees shed their conkers. We used collect
these conkers and thread a piece of string through them to play a game
called conkers, the idea being to hit your opponents conker, that he or
she hung on the piece of string and then vice verse until either one was
destroyed. The one that had the last un-destroyed conker was the champion.
When we got older we were allowed to go to the local farmer to pick
potatoes and cut the heads and tails off turnips during the Autumn school
brake. The money that we earned doing this work we could keep, thus
supplementing our pocket money. In the winter it could be beautiful and
majestic when it started to snow, I could sit in the ballroom for hours
watching the large snow flakes floating down and melting on the windows of
the centrally heated room until the pure white snow had covered all the
lawns, trees and the bushes. The snow looked especially beautiful when it
lay completely undisturbed and the only footprints to see were from small
animals such as wild rabbits, or the three pronged imprints in the snow of
birds, such as the red robins looking for something to eat.
The inside of this Stately Home was divided into different areas some of
which we were never allowed to enter. Downstairs at the front left
end of the home was the inside of the greenhouse, next to that was a large
room that was called the ballroom, which had glass doors that led onto the
back lawn or garden area. The large ballroom led to a room called
the games room, here we played all those types of games that was played in
those days, snakes and ladders, monopoly, drafts, housey housey etc.
children’s books were also available here and in the middle of the room
was a billiard table. This room then led into a large hallway that led to
the driveway at the front entrance of the house which we were never
allowed to pass through.
Facing the front entrance from inside the hallway on the left was the
headmaster's room and office, invariably if we entered into that room it
was only for some kind of punishment for something that we had done wrong,
only twice was I to enter into that room. Opposite the headmasters
room was the dining room where we all ate together, including the
headmasters wife, the masters and matrons and us children. There were
strict set times for the meals, being late was unthought-of. Exactly
opposite the games room entrance was the front main staircase to the first
floor, this staircase was taboo for us, under no circumstances except in
case of fire were we allowed to go up these stairs, that was a sacrilege,
these stairs could only be used by the masters and matrons.
Between this staircase and the side of the dining room was a passage way
leading to the old servant's staircase close to the back end of the house,
this staircase as I was to find out, was the one that we children used.
The kitchens, the laundering and sewing rooms and a few other rooms where
we could hang our coats and change our shoes were also at this back part
of the house. Further down the passage way there was a left turn that
brought us into the back sunken yard, which was our entrance into the
home. The first floor was where the dormitories and bathrooms
were. Shotley Park was originally a boys home, however shortly after I
first arrived there, it was changed into a mixed home of around 20 boys
and 10 girls. Therefore the dormitories were split up into two areas, one
area was where the boys slept and another area was where the girls slept,
this was the only time that we were separated. We played, ate, went to
school and fought for each other, and against each other, we were all the
same within the home, we were all equal’s.
Further along past our dormitories, the Matrons, Masters and other live in
staff slept, the Headmaster used the large rooms at the top of the main
staircase as his sleeping area towards the front of the first floor
landing. There were a couple of rooms at the end of the first floor
that were used as sick bays, the rest of the rooms were out of bounds for
us children. There was a second floor, a small attic with a few
rooms that were used as a reserve sick bay whenever an epidemic such as
flu broke out, or whenever any of us children caught an infectious illness
and had to be separated from the rest.
The school that we all went to was a
secondary modern school at a village called Leadgate on the road towards
Consett, a steel processing town. We described this school as an outside
school which meant outside of our grounds a term that I was to learn to
use from the other Barnardo's children until I left Dr Barnardo's in 1958.
Anything or anybody was always termed as the outside or the outsiders. As
I was only 5 and a half years old, I was put into the infant school.
To get to the school we walked along the pathway through the woods of our
grounds until we reached the outside gate which connected to the top main
road, here we turned left away from the village of Shotley Bridge up a
steep hill and then through the dales until we reached the school about
three and a half miles away.
I found this school to be a horrible place I can never remember any one
day, out of all the years that I went there that I wanted to go to that
school. The only thing that was any good about the place was the schools
midday meals and that was only because we could eat what we liked and how
much we liked. I was soon to become to learn that the people at this
school on the outside, where the most cruel, unkind and uncaring people I
was ever to get to know, especially the schoolteachers. From day one the
other children at this school, who were for us the “outsiders”, thought
that we were freaks or something of that nature, “banana kids” was the
name they gave to us.
© James Deane (Dixie) Shotley Park
1948-55
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